Barolo 2017 & Barbaresco 2018
This year’s Nebbiolo Prima tasting in Alba, at the heart of the Langhe region, was organised at the last minute, in order to enable at least journalists based in Italy to taste the latest release of wines from Piedmont’s top regions. At the time, there was still no possibility of others coming in easily from outside, because of continued Covid restrictions.
During our stay in Alba, those attending were not allowed to leave the hotel, other than to exercise alone – so no visits to wineries, nor dining in restaurants. There were fewer journalists compared to previous years, and some producers opted not to submit wines.
To get as full a picture as possible of this year’s Piedmont new releases, after the event I received some wines at home, met some producers for remote tastings over Zoom, and visited the region twice more. I was able to visit Maria-Teresa Mascarello, Alfio Cavallotto, Mariacristina Oddero, Angelo Gaja, Daniele Gaia at Réva, GB Burlotto and others. The Rinaldi sisters preferred to stay closed to visitors but were happy to send samples, while our appointment at Bruno Giacosa unfortunately had to be cancelled because of a quarantine due to Covid. It all made for quite a challenging preview this year, but after everything, the vintages on show proved better than expectations.
BAROLO 2017
The sandstone and limestone soils of the Langhe normally lend themselves to raising chalk-like dust, but the Barolo 2017 vintage will be remembered as the ‘dust harvest’. A phenomenon more often seen during the height of the summer, Maria-Teresa Mascarello at Bartolo Mascarello, in the Barolo commune, recalls: ‘We harvested in the dust. We had a cooler climate at the end of the season, which was crucial for the quality of the grapes, however we had four months without rainfall.’
Drought was by far the main threat in 2017, which was marked by a hot summer, particularly at the end of June and into July. Temperatures didn’t quite reach the extremes of the boiling 2003 summer and, crucially, night and day temperature variations were reasonable, helping to retain freshness in the grapes. Furthermore, concerns over pests and disease that often raise their heads in damper conditions were therefore kept to a minimum.
The conditions forced early picking, and the average start date for Nebbiolo grapes in 2017 was 25 September, ending on 7 October. During a second round of berry sampling, Paolo Scavino’s report records: ‘We noticed that the plants began to resist the destemming. To make up for the lack
